A bountiful crop and high prices are

raising hopes among some Kansas agriculture officials that cotton

could become a main crop in the Sunflower State.

Gary Feist is general manager of the Southern Kansas Cotton

Growers gins in Winfield and Anthony. He says everyone involved

with cotton in Kansas is smiling.

Bob Miller, a Wellington farmer who used to be speaker of the

Kansas House, says the optimism is partly because cotton prices are

the highest since the Civil War.

The National Cotton Council says world cotton futures are

nearing $1.40 a pound, up more than 75 percent since January.

The Hutchinson News reports that farmers will harvest about

55,000 cotton acres across southern Kansas this fall.

—